


amends

by sarahshelena



Series: orphan black with dæmons [6]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemon Separation, Daemon Touching, Daemons, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Loneliness, Pining, Same-Sex Daemons, Series, Sibling Incest, Sister/Sister Incest, Timeline What Timeline, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 04:21:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9418406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahshelena/pseuds/sarahshelena
Summary: sarah and her dæmon made no secret of how uneasy they felt around helena. but when their mistrust of sarah's twin begins to hurt her, they find themselves doing what neither of them thought possible.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MaryAnnett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryAnnett/gifts).



> reclaiming my dæmon au fics thanks to inspiration from MaryAnnett
> 
> **STORY NOTE: THIS AU**
> 
> based on the 'his dark materials' book universe in which people's souls live outside their bodies in the form of an animal that reflects their human's personality.)
> 
> same-sex dæmons are rare, but just to make this AU a little different, and to signify the rarity of clones, all genetic identicals have a dæmon the same gender as the one they themselves were assigned at birth. to simplify: the leda clones have female dæmons and the castor clones have male dæmons.
> 
> **DÆMON FORMS**
> 
> [helena's dæmon](https://sarahshelena.tumblr.com/post/159040319668/1-of-o-b-w-i-t-h-d-%C3%A6-m-o-n-s-by) akakia (pronounced a-kay-she-aa) is a cape ratel, also known as a honey badger, shown [here](http://sarahshelena.tumblr.com/tagged/honey-badger)
> 
> it is arguably the most fearless, ferocious and intelligent animal on earth, one of the most naturally gifted escape artists and is known for eating porcupines and venomous snakes, raiding beehives, kidnapping baby cheetahs and stealing food from lions; I always knew the honey badger was perfect for her.
> 
> * * *
> 
> [sarah's dæmon](https://sarahshelena.tumblr.com/post/159042866283/3-of-o-b-w-i-t-h-d-%C3%A6-m-o-n-s-by) atë (pronounced "AH-tay") is a black canadian timber wolf shown [here](http://sarahshelena.tumblr.com/tagged/wolf). 
> 
> wolves can be savage and merciless, and they can also be nurturing. sarah is no different. wolves are pack animals. they rarely live or travel alone. sarah is strongest when she has her family, which is why I chose a wolf for her, among many other reasons.
> 
> * * *
> 
> I have made a [playlist](https://sarahshelena.tumblr.com/post/163800032423/half-the-world-away-a-playlist-for-helena-and) for helena and her daemon on spotify  
> 

  _“_ _We all have someone we never speak of. Someone who meant so much that even breathing their name makes your soul tremble with memories and pain.”_

— Nikita Gill

* * *

Helena would always be reaching out to touch.

Her hands flexing, desperate for the contact she so craved, would brush against Sarah's sleeve, or her bare arm, and for a long time, the punk would immediately flinch away, grimacing.

So Helena learnt not to do it. She didn't want to touch if no one wanted to be touched. No one wanted to touch her. Like she was cancer. It only hurt you, but others didn't come too close out of fear of catching it.

Helena spent a long time just sitting. Sitting, fidgeting, talking to herself, unbearably alone.

Akakia wasn't around a lot. She didn't like the tension between Helena and _sestra._ It made her angry. The animosity between her and Sarah's wolf dæmon Atë was unmistakeable. So the honey badger stayed away, and so was away from Helena too, leaving the clone with no one.

She would have left with Akakia if she could bear to leave Sarah, but her memory was a clear reminder that Akakia always came back.

Sarah rarely did.

* * *

So Helena suffered; left without her dæmon for long periods of time, she'd grow paler and quieter, withdrawing inside herself while everything else went on around her like watching a film in a cinema.

_(Helena had only been to the cinema once. It had been a cartoon film, and she had stared, eyes affixed to the screen, for the entire 90 minutes as Akakia licked candy off the sticky floor. Helena had stale popcorn and spent the rest of the day trying to get it out of her teeth.)_

“Oi, meathead,” Sarah nudged her, and Helena blinked in surprise, noticing her sister beside her and the massive wolf-dæmon that hung about at Sarah’s heels.

“Yes, _sestra?”_

“You all right?” Sarah's eyebrows furrowed in concern.

“No, I am fine. I am missing my dæmon.”

Atë’s ears immediately flattened against her skull and Helena looked away, focusing on a point on the wall opposite her.

“So, you're lonely then?” Sarah prodded uncertainly.

“Yes. Very lonely.” Helena echoed.

“Why _does_ she stay away for so long?” Sarah asked impulsively, “And why does she leave now anyway? She doesn't need to anymore…”

“Akakia does not like it here,” Helena stated bluntly, making Sarah reel back in confusion.

“Why?”

Helena fidgeted, “I do not like to say.” Her fingers played with the hem of her sweater, worrying at a loose thread, bereft without her dæmon to hold — _her fur coarse under Helena's fingers_ — and anxious of being so close to Sarah when Sarah's dæmon was so mistrustful of them.

“It's me, isn't it?” Sarah said hollowly, “It’s because of me that she's gone.”

Helena nodded, tears suddenly welling up and spilling from her eyes.

“I miss her very much,” the words came out as sobs.

“Yeah, I bet,” Sarah hated the idea of being away from her dæmon. It was physically impossible for her, but Helena had been forcibly and brutally separated from her dæmon as a child by Tomas, at great risk to her life to further her training. As a result of this cruel practice, her honey badger dæmon could go anywhere, as far away from her as the other side of the world without pain.

But not without ill effect.

The very idea of that was unbearable to Sarah.

Unsettled and unsure of what to do, Sarah reached out instinctively to pull her dæmon close, needing the comfort she gave. But the wolf had stepped around Sarah's legs decisively, and pressed her nose to Helena’s face, licking the tears from her cheeks as her own dæmon would have done.

Stiffening, Sarah stared in shock. It was practically unheard of, and utterly forbidden for there to be contact between a person and a dæmon who was not their own. Touching someone else’s soul was such a taboo, it went back further than living memory.

But Atë, knowing this, paid it no mind. Helena was miserable, and it had been her fault. So she comforted her and loved her just as the former assassin’s own dæmon would have if she were there.

Drawing back, Atë gave a wolfy grin, hoping what she did had helped. Helena sniffed and threw her arms around the wolf’s thickly furred neck, crying loudly into her ruff, mumbling “thank you, lovely Atë,” and sobbing as if her heart would break.

Sarah watched all this unfold, thunderstruck. She had never known someone with a separated, absent dæmon before, and didn't know anybody else who had. The breach of the taboo had her trembling at the intimacy of the contact between her dæmon and her twin, and she felt a deep, familiar yearning in her heart that she couldn't describe, and didn't even understand.

What she did next she didn't understand, either.

With her dæmon in Helena’s arms, Sarah felt the awakening of something she'd been forcing herself to forget, and she hadn't been the only one. All the times that Atë had snarled and snapped at Helena and her dæmon, there had been an underlying fear in them of something that Sarah and her soul couldn't bear to acknowledge.

She gently placed her hand on Helena’s shoulder and her twin lifted her tear-streaked face from the wolf’s fur, her cheeks and nose red with crying. Her lip shook, until Sarah pressed her mouth against it, stilling the tremble and releasing a sigh into her twin’s mouth that she'd been holding within herself. Helena kissed her back; so hungrily, Sarah wondered how it felt to have been starved of affection for so long. Atë stood between them, nuzzling their faces tenderly.

This was what she wanted. This was who she wanted. _Helena_ , the other half of her, what had been missing all this time, a hollow space inside her that reminded her of savage, gnawing hunger.

It didn't hurt any more.

**Author's Note:**

> it is well known among those who read _his dark materials_ that there is a sexual component to touching another person's dæmon, or them touching yours, which is a major part of why it is forbidden — in most cases it is a literal physical violation. 
> 
> however; between lovers, this unspoken law may be bent: if both fully consent, it can bring a deeper intimacy into the relationship and strengthen the bond between them. 
> 
> check out my [fanfic blog](https://sarahshelena.tumblr.com) and send me prompts and shite :)
> 
> kudos and comments make my day and help me write. let me know what you think!


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